Three is a Crowd
by jackie-dawkins
Summary: John Winchester kept a secret from the boys - another sibling. How will this effect the boys? And does this new sibling have any special role to play due to the Winchester bloodline. NOTE: I have noticed that certain people are really against the sis-fic story lines, but I think it is an interesting trope in which to explore character dynamics. NOTE: Never done this before.
1. Chapter 1

John Wincester was driving when he got the call. He had several cell phones, but there was one line specifically devoted to 'special' calls. He pulled the car over and checked the caller I.D.

"What is it, dad?" Dean asked, cautiously. He was always slightly cautious when certain numbers were called. Sam sulked in the back seat and didn't acknowledge what was going on. That was the other reason Dean was being so cautious, because being around the two of them was straight anxiety. You couldn't figure out what either of them were going to do at any given minute, although it was a pretty fair bet that they weren't going to get along by the end of a conversation.

"I have to take this." Grumbled John, and loudly stepped out of the car. He could tell that his eldest wanted to know who it was on the phone, but he didn't feel the desire or necessity to explain to his son who he wanted to talk to on the phone. That was not how this relationship was going to work.

"Maria, what is it? I'm really busy, I'm on a -"

"Trip, I know John. Just shut up and listen for a minute." The voice on the other end sounded exasperated, and even more exhausted than usual.

"Are you there John?"

"Yes, you told me to shut up and -"

"Fine. You made your point. I just thought you'd like to know that your daughter was arrested."

John took a deep breath. He'd never let Bobby know, but he had read and was trying to use the techniques from that book that Bobby had given to him for his last birthday. It didn't help. He glanced over his shoulder at the car, and noticed Dean move suddenly, trying to prevent his father from knowing that he was eavesdropping. He took another breath, a few more steps away from the car, and lowered his voice.

"Come again, Maria..." His voice was scratchy.

"Your daughter was arrested. I don't know how much more clearly you would like me to say it."

"Well what the hell did she do? Is she in prison? Do you need bail?"

"O.K. Slow down, John. She wasn't processed or anything. She got into a pretty nasty fight at school - that involved a teacher - I might add, and the school agreed not to press charges but expelled her. And she is sitting in the living room with a police officer mouthing off to me now. That's the story John."

"Well what do you want me to do?"

"Are you serious John? I guess I just wanted you to know that you spawned a delinquent. That's all. I'll be going now."

John took another breath, and counted down from ten.

"How does this keep happening, Maria? How do you let her get into situations like this?"

"Oh, no you don't John Winchester! You do not get to blame something on a single mother as you drive around the country doing a job that no one asks you to do. If you could do such a bang-up job maybe you could show up once in an while and raise your own god damned daughter."

John went silent. This was how their conversations had gone for a while now, but he couldn't really fault Maria. He hadn't been there. Seventeen years ago he had left the kids at Bobby's for a weekend to go on a hunt, and that hunt had brought him to Maria's door. He saved her life one time, and she wanted to thank him, and normally he would have said no but he missed his wife and he was drunk and depressed and she was hot. And it was one weekend. One weekend that nine-months later brought another responsibility into his life. A responsibility he had deftly avoided for nearly two decades.

"Put her on the phone." It was a command, but his voice was soft and deflated. Maria had gotten under his skin and he was tired.

There was yelling in the background and some slammed doors. John heard the muffled sounds of a male voice (whom he assumed to be the police officer) talking to his daughter and strongly advising that she come to the phone. Finally he heard this:

"What?"

Time for the breathing exercises again.

"Excuse me young lady? If I were you I'd take a moment to think about who your talking to."

"Oh. Didn't recognize your voice. Haven't heard it since my birthday."

John winced, but he knew this battle wasn't going to be won easily. Even if he deserved this, he was still her father and she was still his child.

"Antonia, you listen to me right now," any and all timidity was gone from his voice - rough and gruff John Winchester was back; "You are in a whole lot of trouble right now. Do you understand me?"

"Well the nice cop took the cuffs off, so I think I'll be okay."

"Shut your mouth and listen very carefully. You are in a mess of trouble right now, young lady. And I am not happy with you."

John waited. The other end of the phone call was silent.

"Are you listening to me?"

"Well you told me to shut up, so..."

John held the phone away from his ear for a moment. He was beyond angry, but he had to smile. The apple did not fall far from the absentee tree it seemed.

"You and me are going to have a long conversation."

"Going to, I thought that's what we were doing right now."

"I'll be there..." He checked his watch. How quickly could he get there, and what was he going to tell Sam and Dean? "...in two days. Can you stay out of trouble until then?"

"Maybe."

"Excuse me?" He was angry again.

"I'll try."

John shut the phone angrily and tried the breathing exercises again. They weren't working. This was exactly the worst timing for this situation. He felt that he was at the precipice of finally reaching the conclusion of his life's work. He was going to catch and kill the demon that had taken everything from him. This was not the time to be dealing with a teenager with authority issues, he already had to deal with Sam. And with the boys as on edge with him as they had been recently this was not the time to reveal a secret that he had kept away from them for seventeen years. But family was family, and there was a chance he might die on this final mission, and he'd rather go out knowing that all three of his children were on some kind of 'non-criminal' path before he did. John took another deep breath and picked up the phone.

"Bobby, what do you have for me in New Mexico? No - not related to yellow eyes, just something that can keep the boys occupied for a couple days. I have to take care of something there. OK, let me write that down."

Some secrets were best kept for a while longer, John had decided.


	2. Chapter 2

Antonia's stomach was in knots when she hung up the phone. He had threatened to come multiple times before, but this was the first follow through. She hadn't seen her father in nearly a year. What would they talk about? 'Damn it, Antonia,' she thought to herself, 'You know exactly what he's going to say: Get your shit together.' That's what everyone said to her. Why couldn't she do it? What was going on with her?

Antonia looked at her mother. She wanted to apologize and she wanted to cry, but instead she took a deep breath and walked away, being sure the slam the door when she got outside.

"Toni! Get back here -"

She couldn't look at her, or the cop in the living room. She needed some time by herself.

Why had this year been so much more difficult than the others? She'd always been a bit of trouble maker, but this year felt like a switch got turned on inside her. She couldn't do anything right and everything made her so angry. It had started right around the same time as the dreams. Antonia shook her head and reached into her pocket to grab a cigarette. Her thoughts were reeling, and her head was cloudy. She was a mix of nerves and anger.

"None of this matters, though," she thought to herself as she lit a smoke.

"I'm going to get to meet Sam and Dean."

Antonia had grown up hearing stories about her brothers. They were all her father would talk about when he came to visit. There was always some reason that they couldn't visit, and she had resented her father for this for so long. But she had heard her mother say they were working a case, and that meant that the boys were around. That meant that the boys were going to come visit. She was finally going to meet them, and this thought filled her with joy and fear. What had her father told them about her? Did they think of her as the problem child that she had obviously become? Did Dean know that she still had one of his stuffed animals from when he was a kid? Did Sam know she wore a sweatshirt from Stanford that dad had given her after Sam was accepted? What were they going to be like?

Antonia didn't know, but she did know that this was really happening whether she wanted it to or not. She was not looking forward to the 'talk' with her father, but she did want to meet them, to know about them, to look at them.

She sat down, looking serious and puzzled.

"And to think," She pondered, "...this all came from a fight."

It was the teacher at school who had started the fight. She had said as much to her mother, and for that matter to Officer Sullivan, but that hadn't mattered, not that they had a reason to believe her. She did lie rather frequently, and was quite aware that that impacted her relationships. She continued to do it anyway, though, because she believed that 'a girl ought to be able to have some secrets.' Secrets had always been important to Antonia, probably because so much of her early life had been framed that way. Toni thought back to the fight. She wanted to know what had gone wrong. This was the thing that had set into motion the chain of events that were going to introduce her to her brothers and got her into the trouble of her life with her father. What had happened? What went wrong?

It was lunch time when the art teacher pulled her aside. He asked her some question about getting a permission slip signed, because they were going to have a nude model in next week. She pulled the forged form out of her pocket and handed it to him and had turned away.

"Stop, Toni. This isn't your mother's signature." His voice had changed slightly, and Toni couldn't put her finger on it.

"Of course it is, Mr. Racchio." She had pouted and crossed her arms. She knew the teacher. He wasn't a super sleaze, but he certainly didn't mind working with teenage girls and if she crossed her arms in the right way and heaved her chest a bit this whole situation could be taken care of in a moment.

"Stop it, Toni." His voice was most certainly different now. It was cold, dead, and made Toni uncomfortable.

"Look Racchio, she was working, that's why I signed for her. But if you call her she'll say it was fine. I mean it's just a stu-"

He cut her off: "She was working, huh? She had someone between her legs?"

Antonia was silent. She had known for some time what her mother did for a living, but was pretty sure that no one else at the school did. She felt her blood pressure rise. No matter what she said to her own mother, she wasn't going to let anyone talk about her that way.

"What fucking right..." Her fists clenched into hard balls and she couldn't breathe from the anger.

"Look, sweetheart. The whole world's been there so everyone knows. The point is that she was working, and your father is not in town right now either. Off fighting some ghosts somewhere, huh?"

Toni was confused. Was Mr. Racchio off his rocker? She understood the prostitute comment even if she didn't like it, and she had heard worse in her day. But what was he getting on about her dad?

"Fuck you." Her voice was hard and pointed and without exaggeration. She didn't want this to escalate but if it needed to it would.

"And that's exactly what I paid your mother to do last week. Well... to fuck me of course."

That's when the fight started. Well not exactly. Antonia saw something right before all gears clicked into 'kill mode.' She saw something that she couldn't justify to herself, that she wanted to write off, but just couldn't. Right before she took her first swing, Mr. Racchio's eyes turned black. He smiled and all of his eyes turned black. Toni was sure that she was making it up, but it stuck with her, even after her fist collided with his nose.

This was the fight that put everything in motion. Toni finished her cigarette, but felt no resolution. She decided she wished that none of this was going to happen, and sulked back inside past her mother and Officer Sullivan and stomped loudly up the stairs. She didn't mean to fight the teacher, and she didn't mean to get kicked out of school, and she didn't want to see her father, and she wasn't ready to meet the brothers that she had idolized her entire life.

She wished it were yesterday and that she could get a second chance.


	3. Chapter 3

*I apologize for the long wait. This is the first story I've done, and I was having some problem building momentum. Thank you for your kind words, and I promise some energy in the next few chapters!**

"But I don't understand Dad," Azaleal hasn't been sighted in New Mexico. Why are we going -"

"That's enough Dean," John gruffly cut his off, "I said we're going. Bobby called about a vamp nest to take care of, and -"

"And I said so and I'm your father and that's what we're going to do even if it threatens the foundations of a case that everyone has been working for years but it's okay. Let's just drop it. Because I said so." Sam murmured from the back seat. Dean sat up directly and tried to judge his fathers' reaction. He also frantically looked to the back seat, trying to communicate with Sam, and tell him to drop it. Why did it always have to be a fight with them, he wondered. Why couldn't we put it aside?

John took a deep breath. Next time Bobby got him a self-help book gift it had better be more effective.

He stopped the car. "Look Sam. I get it." His voice was drained, and he sounded exhausted. Dean was startled, but no where as confused as Sam looked. "I'm asking a lot of you boys right now. And I've always asked a lot from you. But I need you to trust me on this." He took another breath. "Please."

"Of course. OK Dad. That's fine." Sam stammered out, completely caught off guard by his father's apparent sincerity. John restarted the car, and everyone was silent.

The rest of the ride was uneventful. Sam read and Dean slept when he wasn't eating. John didn't speak much except to call Bobby and put him on speaker phone for the boys.

The nest wasn't much of a threat. Most of the casualties were drunk college kids walking home from the bar. The attacks had gotten a bit more frequent, and some a hunter that Bobby knew in the area didn't mind a bit of extra backup - even though he hadn't requested it.

"Way below your pay-grade, you idjits," Bobby grumbled which caused John to grab the phone quickly and take it off speaker.

Sam raised an eyebrow at Dean, but Dean made it clear that they were not going to ask any more questions. Sam shrugged and looked back at his book.

Night had fallen by the time that the men reached the motel. John - who until now how had been driving rather smoothly trying not to wake his children - brought the Impala to a rather forceful stop. Sam woke up startled, and Dean - who hadn't been wearing his seat belt - was jolted quite awake. John chuckled quietly to himself as he watched the boys, his boys, collect themselves. Once Bobby asked if he didn't sometimes wish they were kids again: "Just one more chance to carry them while they sleep, would that be nice John? One more chance for them to look at you as if you're superman?" John had nodded at Bobby at the time, because it seemed the right thing to do and the whiskey had made him sentimental. But really he would never go back to a time when his sons were boys who couldn't protect themselves. Now that they were men he didn't have to worry about leaving them or lying to them.

John hadn't realized how lost in thought he had become and he looked up distractedly when Sam started to cough. "Dad?"

"Oh - yeah. Why don't you guys get us set up? I have a couple things to take care of tonight. We'll start on the vamp nest early tomorrow though, so you boys better get rested."

"Take care of?" This time it was Dean that was questioning him. Everyone in the car looked surprised, including Dean. "I mean..." he started to lose some of his cool. "Dad, I just don't get it, we have everything we need. We even have some left-over dead-man's-blood in the trunk. Not that you could be trying to pick that up right now? So... what's the deal?" Dean took a deep breath. He wasn't sure why he was toeing the line with his father right now, but he just couldn't shake that there was something wrong. The hushed phone-calls with Bobby, the frantic-ness of his father's plan, not to mention something that would take him so far from his decade old path for revenge.

"Look, Dean," This time John sighed. This was going to be hard not to share, but he just couldn't. "I have something to take care of. It's personal, it's mine, and it will be dealt with by the time you guys are ready to clear that nest."

John stared at Dean for a moment. Dean looked away and opened the door. Sam quickly followed. John pulled out of the parking lot and went to pick up the high way. This was going to be a long weekend.

John parked quietly in lot shared by condo owners on Maria's street. It was about 3am and he decided to sleep in the car for a couple hours. At dawn he'd go wake up Maria, deal with Toni, and be back to motel by the late morning or early afternoon. As John leaned back in his, with his collar flipped upwards for extra-warmth, and got ready to settle in for a couple hours of sleep he noticed a figure out of the corner of his eyes. It was hard to follow in the dark, but he could just barely make out a shadowy figure climbing out of a first floor window. And he knew who it was.

Toni stumbled on her way out of the window, but was quickly back on her feet was obviously in a hurry. With a backpack slung over her shoulders she to jog away from the house. John quickly got out of the car. "Not so fast little one," he growled under his breath and he started to walk toward the fleeing teenager. Something stopped him, however. Across the parking lot, and closer to his daughter's escape attempt another man climbed out of a car. It was a police officer, and judging how Toni did not run away immediately John assumed it was the police officer he had heard on the phone a couple days ago. John stood in the shadows and watched.

Officer Sullivan approached Toni and grabbed her backpack. "Stop! Now, Toni!" Toni spun around to face him.

"Look, leave it alone Sullivan." She spat, exhausted.

"I'm not going to let you go, Antonia. So let's just talk about this."

"You can't tell me what to do," Toni knew it sounded like she was whining, but she was tired of fighting and just wanted this to be over. She tried to squirm about of the officer's grasp, but he was holding her in place.

"Antonia..." Officer Sullivan started to raise his voice and almost immediately Toni began to cry. For a moment Officer Sullivan looked confused, but he quickly pulled her into a protective embrace. John could not hear what the police officer was saying to her, but he could read enough of the body language. His only daughter was running away the night before he showed up to 'fix' the situation, but there was another person setting boundaries for her and raising her and picking her up from school.

Officer Sullivan led Toni back into the house, and John leaned back on his car with his arms crossed.

John had certainly struggled in the past with the knowledge that his child was being raised by her mother, without knowledge of her brothers. But it had never so fully occurred to him that she was growing so quickly, and that she would fill the relationship holes with others who were there. John slowly got back into the car. There was no reason for him to be there now. He'd talk to her tomorrow, but he wasn't as worried about what was going to happen to his daughter in the long term. She had people looking out for her. She was going to be okay.


	4. Chapter 4

The sun was already up when John was woken up to a brisk knocking on the window. He jumped rather hastily, but relaxed when his eyes focused on Maria. She was shivering wrapped in a bathrobe and carrying a mug of coffee that was visibly steaming in the chilly October morning air. He rolled down the window. She looked exhausted.

"When did you get in, John?" she asked while handing the him the coffee through the window. He nodded his thanks.

"A few hours ago - didn't want to wake you." His voice was gruff from the lack of sleep and he knew his conversation skills needed still needed some time.

"I'm awake now..." He mumbled, stretching his neck from side to side.

Maria walked around to the passenger side of the Impala and climbed in. She rolled down the window and pulled out a cigarette from her bathrobe pocket.

"Not a word, John," She warned. "I'm not in the mood."

Instead of a lecture John handed her a light. She leaned back in the seat and closed her eyes. The morning sun caught the curve of her neck, and John remembered her when she was younger. She had been the kind of woman who lit up a room, careless and delicate and gentle and warm. Now her face lacked something and she was older. But for a moment, when she closed her eyes and her lips opened ever so slightly John remembered a woman that he could have fallen in love with if he had just stayed around.

The two sat there in silence through the length of Maria's cigarette and John's coffee.

John finally spoke. "I'm sorry." He mumbled in a gruff kind of way.

"I know," Maria responded. "Let's go see if the kid is awake."

The two got out of the car and walked back to Maria's condo, hands almost touching but not quite.

Toni had in fact been awake for some time. Her failed escape had not deterred her. She was even more determined to make it out of there before her father and her brothers showed up. It was a conversation with her mother that had finally clicked. They were sitting around at dinner the night before and Maria had blindsided her with pamphlets to some 'alternative-education' schools. 'Legal work-camps more like it' was Toni's thought. She started to yell at her mother and got up from the dinner table waiting for the verbal sparring match that was the conclusion to every family dinner in her recent memory.

But Maria had stayed silent. Toni was thrown for a moment, but started back up. "Fine Mom, whatever, send me away. They'll just kick me out and send me back too. At least you'll be rid of me for a few months."

Maria silently got up and picked up the dish that Antonia had thrown on the floor. She rinsed it off in the sink, as Toni continued to yell. Soon though Toni started to feel a big pit in the bottom of her stomach.

"Mom? Could you talk to me please? Mom?" She felt like a child. Her voice was shaking.

"Not tonight, Antonia. Not tonight."

Maria had walked slowly up the stairs and closed her bedroom door. Toni sank to the floor crying. She knew she had finally pushed it too far. And that is when she made up her mind to leave, before she saw her father, before her mother woke up and before she could hurt her again. Officer Sullivan had prevented the first attempt, but she was not discouraged. If he hadn't been sitting in the parking lot she would have been able to walk away from everything without a problem.

Toni stopped sat on her bed and looked out the window. She imaged her life on the road, without her mother and her mother's sadness. She imagined working in small diners on the sides of highways, and tending bar and making money on pool games. Toni started to smile, and thought that there was a kind of freedom in disappearing. Antonia's fantasy was interrupted by a loud knock on her bedroom door. She jumped out of bed anxious to hide her packed suitcase. It was being roughly pushed into the closet when there came another knock. "WHAT?" She snapped towards the door. "JUST GIVE IT A FUCKIN SECOND." The door smashed open quickly, and Toni took a deep breath. There was her father - not looking too happy - standing in her doorway.

"Shit." She stammered out.

"Not helping your case," John said slowly. He pointed at her bed and commanded, although in a soft voice, "Sit."

She promptly obeyed and waited as John pulled her desk chair to the middle of the room so he could sit down.

"Look John," she said nervously, "I didn't know it was you - I wouldn't have..."

"But you thought it was your mother?" John interrupted sternly. "So I'm supposed to be okay with the fact your talk to your mother like that?"

"I don't... I'm just..." Toni looked down at her feet.

"Stop it, Antonia." His voice was cold and tired like her mother's had been last night, it gave Toni the chills.

She sat there silently, fidgeting under her father's gaze. She hadn't seen the man in years, and could not figure out why he made her so nervous. Or why she so desperately wanted his approval, when he obviously did not want hers. John rubbed his temples, where a slight headache had begun since walking into the room.

"What are we going to do with you, little one?" John finally said quietly.

This was not the reunion that Antonia had been playing over and over in her head. He had been so angry on the phone. She thought he was going to storm up here and yell and threaten to count down from some number and then she was cry and agree to be good and he might take her to a movie, or out for ice-cream, or to the state-fair like that one time when she was seven. But he was quiet and looked so much smaller than the last time she had seen him.

"Mom wants to send me away." She whispered, suddenly scared of that possibility for the first time.

"Why shouldn't she? You seem to make it pretty clear that you don't want to be here." He was talking again, not yelling, and Antonia was still off-put by this.

"I...I didn't want to get kicked out of school." Toni tried to defend herself.

"Well I hear punching your teacher is a pretty good way of convincing them you don't want to stay."

Antonia shut her mouth tightly. She had never figured out if her father knew how Maria supported them, but she knew it was never going to be a conversation that the two of them were going to have. How could that conversation be productive at all? She imagined it for a moment... Well, dad, I'm glad you asked that question. People make a lot of comments about mother because of her chosen profession. Why, yes, father, I mean the fact she a prostitute. You are right, dad, she would still have that job if you had stayed to take care of us. If that makes you feel better you should totally believe it. Either way when people make fun of me because of her I hit them. It's natural father, I knew you'd agree. No that conversation was not going to go anywhere good, anytime fast. Maybe she could be a bit honest with him.

"I just get angry sometimes, John. I don't really know what to do."

John winced at the sound of his name out of his daughters mouth. He looked at her, trying to see any family resemblance. Maybe she looked a bit like Dean, although how big her eyes just got right then that was all Sammy. Mostly all he could see was her mother, younger, angrier, and darker. But Antonia was Maria's daughter most definitely.

"Move over kiddo," John stood up and crossed the room. Tonia shuffled slightly to one side and John sat down next to her. He put his arm around her and she didn't pull away although she didn't exactly melt into him either.

"Do you remember me ever talking about your Uncle Bobby?" He asked.

"Maybe? Cars or something?" Toni was lying, because she knew every story that her father had told her by heart and backwards.

"Yeah, that's him. Well Bobby got me a book recently that is supposed to help me with my anger. I'm supposed to take deep breaths and exercise and count down from very large numbers in awkwardly descending intervals." Toni looked up at him quizzically. "It's harder to count down from 300 by multiples of seven then by one's. It slows you down more." He explained.

"Does it work?"

"Not always. But at least I haven't hit anyone I care about recently."

"But I didn't give a fuck -" John stared down seriously at his daughter waiting for her to realize what she said. "I mean... I didn't give two shits about the teacher." He decided to let it go.

"But you do care about your mom."

"Of course," Toni looked up at her father with large eyes and for a moment all he could see was Sammy being earnest and not fighting with him for a moment. He pulled her a little closer to himself.

"So take deep breaths or some other stupid thing. Do whatever you can to not hurt your mom. I need you to look after her right now. I need you to grow up a bit and make decisions that a grown up would make, for her sake."

Antonia surprised herself as well as her father when she leaned her head on his shoulder quietly. John took this as a sign that he had the floor to continue and that she might be more receptive to what he had to say.

"That includes running away." Toni felt her heart-beat quicken, and she looked up at her father in a panic.

"I just thought..." she stammered, completely overwhelmed at the fact that he knew.

"Tell me something, little one. Did you think about how you were going to get around or where you were going to stay?"

Antonia pushed away from her father. "Look John. Not everyone is made to go to college and live in the suburbs. Maybe the life I'm supposed to lead is to run from place to place around the world, and have my own little one shot adventures where-ever I land. Maybe I'm sick of staying put. And maybe there's nothing wrong with that." Antonia was mad when she stopped talking, and she started to count down from something in her head. John could tell because she was doing it silently but moving her lips as she counted. He laughed and she glared at him and he stopped.

"You still haven't answered my question, little one. How would you have supported yourself?"

Antonia shrugged her shoulders, "Odd jobs? Hustling pool?" she answered nonchalantly.

He stared at her and tried to stifle another laugh. The irony was palpable. Here was one child for whom he wanted nothing more than a normal life. He would never let her even know about the world behind the current, and if he could help it she would never meet another hunter besides him. But she wanted to be on the road. She wanted adventure and did not need a steady home. John wondered if there was some sort of attitude switch between children - he could give Toni Sam's ambitions and give Sam Toni's wanderlust. Although the thought of them both angry with him at once was terrifying.

"Unpack the suitcase you shoved into your closet before I came in this morning."

Antonia gulped and wondered how he could possibly know that.

"Did you hear me, little one?"

She nodded quickly.

"When you're done with that come downstairs and we'll have breakfast together. Okay?"

John got up and walked to the door.

"John?" Antonia asked as he was about to leave.

"Yes?"

"Sam and Dean aren't coming today, are they?" Her voice sort of squeaked when she asked the question. She hadn't meant to sound so pathetic when she said it.

"No, sweetheart. Not today. One day soon, I promise." John lied. His voice became firm. "I mean it about unpacking the suitcase. And quickly."

Toni stood and walked to her closest to follow his instructions and John went downstairs to have a civil conversation with Maria.

Breakfast was actually an exceedingly pleasant affair. Toni came down the stairs promptly and gave her mother a big hug and a kiss with a loud good morning. She began to set the table while John stood by the stove cracking some eggs into a bowl to make scrambled eggs - which pretty much exhausted his cooking ability. "What did you do?" Maria mouthed over to him when Toni wasn't looking. John just smiled and started to make everyone breakfast. Maria might have actually heard Antonia whistling by the time she sat down to eat.

Maria and Toni were laughing at one of John's stories when there was a knock on the door, and Officer Sullivan begins to let himself in.

"Oh, I'm sorry," he mumbles. "Didn't mean to be interrupting anything."

John looked down at his watch. It was nearly 11 and Dean had called four times over breakfast. It was time for him to go.

"Don't worry about it," he gestured to the officer, "I was just leaving." He stood up at the table and looked at Maria and then at Toni. They both looked sad at the announcement, but not surprised. This was after all what he had been doing to them for nearly two decades. He gave Maria a light kiss on the forehead and they made plans to talk soon about certain upcoming decisions. Toni squirmed a little bit at their chosen vocabulary.

"Come here, sweetheart," John called out and Toni ran up to him and threw her arms around his neck. Maria and John were surprised.

"Please don't go, yet."

"I have to."

"I know, but please don't." Her voice sounded so small in John's ear and he was was surprised at how much he wanted to listen to her. Just stay a few more hours with this secret family that he really did love in some kind of way.

"Maybe I'll stop by again on my way out of town."

Toni showed her agreement by squeezing him tightly and then letting ago.

"I'd like that."

As he walked away he motioned over to Officer Sullivan who had been hiding in a back corner of the living room trying not to impose on the complicated family goodbyes. John extended a hand, "Officer Sullivan I believe."

"Yes, sir. Like I said I wouldn't have stopped by so early if I knew -" He began.

"I really was just leaving. Although if you wouldn't mind stepping outside with me for a moment, I have a question if you have the time."

The two men walked outside. Maria walked up to the other side of the door and placed her ear to it. With a wave of her hand she motioned her daughter up the stairs as she tried to eavesdrop on the men on the porch.

"Thank you for looking out for them," John said gruffly shaking the cops hand.

"I'm just doing my job..." Sullivan began.

"No. Last night you sat in a parking lot and waited through the evening in order to stop my daughter from running away. That is not your job. But that is what you do when you're looking after someone. So thank you."

"Well - you're welcome then, sir." Sullivan responded.

"Keep them safe. Keep my girls safe, and I will always owe you." The two men shook hands, and as John turned away to go to back to the Impala he wiped a tear from his eye. Although he was far enough away from everyone that he was safe. Maria didn't know this however. All Maria knew was that John had called them both 'his girls' and that it shouldn't still make her so weak kneed, but it did.


	5. Chapter 5

John was absolutely exhausted by the time he left Maria's home. That was how he was going to remember his youngest child, if he didn't make it through this final fight - he'd remember her as exhausting. Either way his short sabbatical had come to an end and it was time to return to his real life, with his other children.

As he got into the car the phone buzzed and he answered.

"Dad? Dad is that you?" Dean was out of breath.

"Yeah, it's me. Is everything okay?" John was momentarily concerned. A small nest shouldn't have bothered them this much.

"Well I've been calling all morning, and you never came home last night. We took out the nest by ourselves, but..." John waited for his eldest to finish speaking.

"But... there's something you should see. Come now, dad."

John peeled out the of the parking lot. He didn't like the tone in his eldest's voice, and it was time to get back to work.

**Meanwhile**

Toni was washing the dishes from breakfast as her mother stared at her, amazed. Maria could not for the life of her figure out what had gotten into her daughter. Toni herself was a little bit surprised at how generous she was feeling, and the fact that she hadn't had to count down from 300 in random multiples once yet. Both of them quite suddenly remembered that Officer Sullivan was awkwardly standing in the living room.

"I'm being terribly rude," Maria quipped turning to face him. "Sit down? Have a coffee?"

"No thanks," Sullivan responded. His voice was a bit distant and Toni was quite quickly finding herself uncomfortable having this man in her home. "I'm waiting on something actually."

"One cup of coffee won't hurt, after all you've done for us..." Maria insisted.

"I said I was fine." Sullivan snapped, in a cold and very nearly cruel way. Antonia most certainly didn't like where this was headed at all. She had heard several men talk to her mother this way in the past and the results were never pleasant. Her initial inclination was to run up the stairs and away from what was about to happen. But then she heard her father's voice in her head, telling her that it was her job to take care of her mother now. Antonia quickly found her voice.

"I think it's time for you to leave." The words emerged from the young girl's mouth in a way she couldn't have imagined. She wasn't yelling, her tone was even low, but the authority that she felt immediately almost scared her. Maria sat up quickly, for her daughter had surprised her as well.

"What I think Antonia is trying to say," Maria began after her surprise faded, "Is that it's been an awfully long weekend and we're all tired. I think Toni and I might need to have some time to process-"

"I think Toni knows exactly what she's trying to say," Sullivan interrupted. His face broke out in a smile. "But like I said, I'm waiting on someone. This will all make sense really soon."

"Like I said," Toni's voice was growing in character and volume, "It is time for you to leave. Now." She started walking towards the man in the living room. She had no idea where this sudden directedness was coming from - it almost felt surreal to her - but she knew that she needed to put herself between Officer Sullivan and her mother. She knew that something was not right.

"OK. Let's play it that way. Sit down!" And with that command he drew his weapon. Maria let out a small screech and covered her mouth quickly. Toni's hands went up but her feet stayed planted.

"I told you to sit, Antonia," The older man commanded, still smiling.

"And I told you to leave. So it seems we're stuck like this." Now Toni was smiling.

Maria thought she was going to faint. It felt like she was the only sane person in the room. She closed her eyes and willed herself to wake up. There was no way this could be real, she thought to herself desperately. The man that she let into her home, into her daughter's life now had a gun trained on her child. And her child was speaking to him as if she were not surprised by this.

"You're not going to shoot me." Toni said suddenly.

"Oh, yeah, and why's that?" Sullivan laughed.

"Because I'm important in all of this for some reason. You can't kill me yet." She didn't know how she knew this. Partly conjecture, partly body-language, but there was something else she was reading. There were these strong feelings she was getting about the situation that she couldn't ignore. 'Now is not the time to wonder why,' she thought to herself.

"Oh don't we have a clever little girl on our hands today?" Sullivan was still laughing as the door to the house opened and someone stepped through the threshold.

"Racchio," Toni growled through her mouth.

"Nice to see you again, Toni. It seems you've been healing nicely from a little skirmish the other day. And Ms. Capoletti, it's a pleasure to see you again." Rachio smiled at the two women, one of whom was terrified and clinging to the kitchen chair she was sitting in for dear life. The other was standing tall at the precipice between the kitchen and the dining room. She had a new attitude on, Racchio noticed.

"The girl knows something, man," Sullivan turned to look at his supposed comrade.

"I knew I wasn't seeing things."

"Oh, you mean like this?" Racchio began to laugh with Sullivan and as they looked at Toni both of their eyes turned black. "You are a terribly clever, but a unlucky little girl."

"What is going on?" Maria finally screamed. She was out of breath and hyperventilating. Toni turned to her.

"Mom, stay calm, everything is going to be -"

Just then there was a shard thud to the back of Toni's head. She was unconscious before she even hit the floor. Maria screamed again, but the men ignored her. She got up to run to her child.

"Wait a moment there, Maria," Sullivan began.

"Let her go - it's not like she can do anything to hurt us." Racchio rebuffed.

"But she can help us." Sullivan answered, with a grin. He pointed the gun that he had just hit Toni with at Maria's face.

"Get out your phone and do exactly what I say." Maria fumbled with the phone in her hand. "Remember, I might not be able to kill Toni yet, but you - you're acceptable collateral damage."

"Please I'll give you anything you want -" Maria murmured finally finding her voice.

"This is was I want." Sullivan barked. "Call John Wincester. Tell him his fatherly duties are not quite done yet."


	6. Chapter 6

John hadn't spoken a word to Dean or Sam since getting to the scene. It had only been a few minutes, but to his son sit felt like hours.

"What is he doing, Dean?" Sam whispered to his brother, "I've never seen dad like this."

"Figuring out what to do, I guess." Dean grumbled back, also concerned about his father, but wanting to make Sam comfortable.

John paced in front of a scene unlike any he had been called to in his life before. John's hands were shaking for some time after he first saw what his boys had so desperately called him over for. According to Dean the nest had gone down easily enough between the two of them, just as John had expected. That's why he sent Sammy and Dean on this 'fool's errand' after all. He wanted to distract them while he took care of his less supernatural familial duties. But now he was standing in the basement of an old factory staring at something that told his story differently. Written in what appeared to be blood across the cold concrete and around a pile of beheaded vampires was the following message:

JOHN WINCHESTER... DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION YET? ... I HAVE A SURPRISE FOR YOU ... WAIT HERE

His heart was racing. What could this mean? It had to be a message from yellow-eyes, John reasoned. But it could mean anything. Maybe John was getting close or maybe he had led the Azazel directly to his sons. Either way, this message had to mean that he was on the right path. This journey was coming to a close, and it was happening perhaps a bit faster than John was comfortable with. John pulled his phone out of his pocket to call Bobby. Flipping it open he was greeted by multiple notifications: You have 15 missed calls. He had switched the ringer off when he raced over to see Dean and Sam, figuring there was nothing more important that could arise. But 15 was a startling number. John didn't get the chance to scroll through the log however when his phone started to ring again. He flipped it open and out of habit took a step further away from his sons.

"JOHN!" Maria's voice was scratchy, she was crying and hyperventilating.

"Maria," John called back. "I'm here. What happened?"

"JOHN, they came into the house... I couldn't stop them. They know you. They know what you do. And it's... it's something about Toni."

John felt his heart stop. He had brought this to her. To Maria and to his child.

"They hurt her John and they have guns and I'm scared and you have to come back John."

"I'm coming Maria, just stay calm. Just do what they want." John was yelling without intending to. Sam and Dean ran up to him, he gestured to them to stay away.

"John?" Maria croaked out, quietly this time.

"Yes, Maria?" An eerie feeling crept over him. That somehow this would be the last time he would speak to Maria.

"I am so sorry I couldn't keep our baby safe."

"Maria, stay on the phone with me," John's voice was getting desperate and scratchy. "I'm on my way, just stay on the phone, I'm coming to get both of you. It's going to be OK. Do you hear me Maria? It's going to be OK."

And then he heard her. Toni's voice was muffled in the background.

"Mom!" She shouted. "Let her go you fuck!"

"Oh it looks like Sleeping Beauty has finally woken up." John could hear another muffled voice, this time it was a man. He couldn't make out everything that was going on. Except there was a struggle, and Maria started to scream.

"Say goodbye to your Mom, little girl." The man shouted, and then everything in John's world stopped. All he could hear was the pop of the bullet, his child began to scream, and the phone hit the floor. Maria was dead, shot to death in front of his child, and he was some disembodied voice on the phone. He couldn't protect either of them. He was helpless. His voice was gone. All he could hear was Toni weeping. He imagined that she had thrown her body over her mother's. She was going to die too. His actions had finally caught up with him, and the people he loved were being punished one by one.

And then there was a voice on the phone.

"Dad?" Toni squeaked into the phone.

"Baby - I'm here, right here. I'm coming to you."

"They want me to tell you something."

"Yes, sweetheart?"

"They said they're going to kill you, after they kill me."

"Baby, that's not going to happen. I'm coming right now - I'll be there so soon."

"Don't worry, Dad. I got this."

"What? Honey - don't -" And the phone clicked dead. She had hung up on him.

-

Toni looked at her captors, and then back to her mother's crumpled body on the floor.

"Daddy on his way?" Racchio - or whoever this man was now - teased, his gun still trained on her.

"No. But I think it's time for you two to leave. Permanently." Toni's voice was hard again, like it had been when the men had first confronted her and her mother.

"Excuse me? I think you're seriously confused over who has the upper hand right now."

And then, without further warning, Toni opened her mouth and the sound that came out shattered glass and shook the foundations of the house. And a bright white light came flooding from her eyes.

The demons did not have a chance to scream before they died. And once they were dead the light and the sound were gone as suddenly as they had appeared. The girl crumbled to the floor like a paper-doll. She used the last of her strength to shuffle towards her mother, and wrap the cold dead arms around her body. Her eyes closed, and she wept silently.


End file.
